Terminator Salvation: The Essential Edition

A stripped-down and well-told take on Salvation, this edit makes what was previously a pointless epilogue/prologue to the franchise into an indispensable interlude between the first two films. It's entirely possible to watch this as the future prior to John's having encountered the good T-800 and the T-1000 as a child, and the film works perfectly, without spoiling any of the first-act plot twists in T2.

The pacing, action and motivations are all repaired and streamlined here, with character motivations and choices much clearer. My only quibbles are that now it's less clear why the machines pick out Kyle from the rabble of humans and why John is able to survive such a seemingly mortal blow at the end without the "heart transplant" section, but neither of those are major problems and a moment of head-scratching is still a worthwhile trade-off for the countless improvements. The chance to see the John Conner of the future as a struggling but good-hearted leader rather than a generic warrior god/saviour has no longer been squandered, thanks to Q2's skillful editing.

December 10, 2011 @ 4:50 am

I originally rated this back in December 2011 and am writing a review in September 2012, so I don't remember everything. The tech quality (as is usual with Q2 edits) was spectacular. The entertainment and story on the other hand were still painful as hell for me to watch the entire movie. Not enough was cut for my tastes. So if you more or less liked T4 (as opposed to hating every second of it) you'll probably get a kick out of this edit.

Quality - Good. A little soft for my liking, but perfectly fine.

Visual editing - pretty much flawless, except that the fades on the flashback to the prison cell felt unnatural to me (might be a true black thing?).

Audio editing - excellent for the most part. Although, once again, the flash back to the prison didn't really work for me. Narratively, it was fine. But it was the only part of the editing that just felt off - plus, the audio on Sarah's tape was a bit too quiet and difficult to hear. A direct comparison to the audio from the other tape scene shows a relatively big difference.

Narrative - good. An improvement? Not so sure. Q2 fixes some problems, but creates others. The removing of the rain scene robbed Marcus and the girl of development, and made both the attack seem abrupt and the "I'm cold" scene feel rushed. The removal of her willingness to offer antibiotics also just felt off to me and robbed the scene of a conclusion (she shoots him in the leg, but we don't see him exit?)

I was pleased to see that the twist that Marcus is a Terminator delayed, but it also felt that as a result the reveal of how he came to be what he is was less clear. Its a case of picking the lesser of 2 evils, unfortunately.

Enjoyment - Good. I enjoyed it. I recognise Terminator Salvation as a flawed film, but I've never thought it as bad as many people seem to. It's by no means a work of art, but it's competently made, has decent effects, good action sequences, a reasonable story (granted, with holes) and a good twist. I think both this cut and the original have thier strengths and weaknesses.

Terminator Genysis - now THAT'S a bad film.